I can't believe I haven't posted in this thread yet. This is the #1 thing I want to implement in Uru.

Here's my original proposal. I talked a lot about this with some Plasma hackers several months ago, but I've forgotten a lot of what came of those conversations. I remember them saying that particle effects are huge pains in the tushie. I'm skeptical that they're that hard, since it appeared in the original Uru beta that Cyan implemented the particle effect on the Bahro pillars toward the very end, when time was tightest.

Of course it's silly to talk about implementation very much before we have any code.

I can't understand at all any of you people who say the current linking effect is fine. It is not. It is hardly an "effect" at all. An opacity fade. How, um, cool.

I remember also from my conversations with Plasma hackers that my idea for computing the particle points in Avatar Customization won't work, because linking poses are specific to different Ages, not global. Perhaps then they could be computed upon linking to each Age.

Or, I remember that someone had the idea to use animated avatar textures rather than particles, although I'm skeptical at the idea of making that method look cool with similar or less effort than the particle method.

Particles are actually quite easy when you decide what exactly you want and have the right tools (which we have now). I'm pretty sure you could add a particle animation into the avatar files and have to play when you link (the last part about having it play when you link is probably only possible after the source is released).

I like the fade effect but I'm still curious to see how a particle sparkle-while-fading linking effect would look.

If I was to hazard a guess, I would say the link in/out effect is an animation in the avatar files. That said, I would assume that altering the link in to look like what ever we want is at least technically feasible. (Assuming of course the avatar files are shared with us.) The trickier question is what happens when your in a crowded room and someone likes out in full view. Do 13 clients crash at the same time? Just a thought.

The fade is in the Plasma source... There are commands for fading scene objects in and out.
PtFadeLocalAvatar()
PtFadeIn()
PtFadeOut()